Intel's Management Engine vulnerability

Intel has long been at the center of a controversy surrounding its Management Engine. The company recently issued a security advisory admitting that it has discovered several security vulnerabilities in its in-chip program. While the company also released firmware updates that purportedly fix those issues, some of the hardware vendors have started to offer computers with disabled ME.

Intel hasn’t disclosed the details of these vulnerabilities considering their high severity. Intel said that systems*using ME Firmware versions 11.0/11.5/11.6/11.7/11.10/11.20, SPS Firmware version 4.0, and TXE version 3.0 are impacted.

If you can, I'd recommend crippling the ME altogether, from a security point of view. It's absolutely crazy - a blackbox mini OS always running in the background, with full access to all resources, and no way to know what it's doing. You could have the most secure OS ever devised, and the ME could still compromise you.

-- "Orwell was almost exactly wrong in a strange way. He thought the world would end with Big Brother watching us, but it ended with us watching Big Brother." Alan Moore

The ME made me seriously worried. I might not even get an Intel PC at this point (I'm still negotiating the specs of my new PC).
Right now I'm more inclined to return to an AMD-based PC now.

-- “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The ME made me seriously worried. I might not even get an Intel PC at this point (I'm still negotiating the specs of my new PC).
Right now I'm more inclined to return to an AMD-based PC now.

Bear in mind that AMD have their equivalent of Intel's ME. I don't know they have any published vulnerabilities, but it's more or less the same kind of silly system. Pretty much all modern PCs have these supervisor chips, and at least some of the Intel ones can be disabled.

-- "Orwell was almost exactly wrong in a strange way. He thought the world would end with Big Brother watching us, but it ended with us watching Big Brother." Alan Moore

Originally Posted by Ripper
Bear in mind that AMD have their equivalent of Intel's ME. I don't know they have any published vulnerabilities, but it's more or less the same kind of silly system. Pretty much all modern PCs have these supervisor chips, and at least some of the Intel ones can be disabled.

Yes, but to me it sounded as if ME was a whole sub-system …

-- “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)